I think it was after the Oklahoma St. debacle that I was going to try to work out some sort of methodology in reviewing the work that Texas Tech football head coach Tommy Tuberville in year two of his tenure at Texas Tech. Here are the five things that I'm considering for review, but I think as I continue in this process, I'll add more (I'd also be completely open to anyone suggesting or adding to the list in the comments).
1. On Field Coaching: This should be somewhat self-explanatory, but will be limited to the actual coaching decisions during a game.
2. Roster Management: Which includes, but is not limited to, redshirting and whether or not players fit a particular position.
3. Hiring of Assistant Coaches and Coordinators: This may play out into the offseason as well, especially if there are assistant coaches and/or coordinators that are hired or fired, but would not expect a move until after signing day.
4. Recruiting: What players remain committed and what is a realistic expectation of the incoming 2012 recruiting class.
5. Overall: This will be a culmination of the four items listed above.
The offseason is going to be a long one and we're going to have National Signing Day, February 1, 2012, so I'm thinking that the recruiting portion will happen after NSD. I'll definitely start this series, but it would seem silly to critique the recruiting portion of this analysis prior to Tuberville's third NSD (I never know whether or not to consider the 2010 class Tuberville's or Leach's, but it's probably fair to say that they both had a hand in the 2010 class).
Also mixed in, I think we'll also do a positional review for the team and I also want to try to tackle the "why's" as I think I've somewhat failed in that respect over the past few weeks. I'll take my own stab at what I think went wrong and right with the offense and defense. I've got my own thoughts as to why the offense and defense failed (the offense didn't fail all year, but it was progressively worse) during the year and what it will take to fix that problem. And if I write (I will) about how I think there's a lack of talent in one position or another, I hope you keep in mind that I'll be devoting at least five topics (see above) as to the coaching.
Some of those problems I think are capable of being fixed, but there's a handful or problems that I'm not sure or could be solved depending on whether or not certain players are signed or which players step up after a redshirt. Those are really unknowns and consider that DE Leon Mackey and WR Marcus Kennard were both 4-star JUCO recruits and in terms of their impact (regardless of injury) it was relatively low. This speaks to one of my points, but I think the way that I want to do this throughout the offseason is that there are certain tenants that I think we've learned, something like geometry theorems (oh heck yes, I just threw out the concept of theorems!). So for example purposes, the theorem would be that no matter how highly rated a player is, do not expect that said player will make an immediate and significant impact. If it happens, then that's great, but counting on or thinking that said player will immediately step in and be a 4 out of 5 in terms of production on the field is most likely unrealistic. I do think that Tuberville did recruit some talented players in his first true recruiting class (2011) that those players most likely aren't going to make the impact that you think they will. I know that this goes against the super-secret College Football Blogger Code (this isn't just a blogger code, but also the super-secret code of subscription websites), which is to make sure that your fans have unrealistic and high expectations of incoming players to drive readership and hits, but the general rule is that it takes time for players to develop, unless the player is truly transcendent (like Michael Crabtree, who was great in his first game as a player for Texas Tech, but still had a year to develop as a redshirt).
So there's your road map for the offseason. We'll have plenty of time to fill the gaps with the basketball teams and baseball to go with National Signing Day. Again, I'd love additional thoughts in the comments as to how to proceed forward.